"Thank you," she said shortly—bowed slightly and sat down. Lunev looked secretly at her face, absolutely different from the women's faces he had seen hitherto, her dark-brown well-worn dress, her patched shoes and yellow straw hat. She sat there, and talked to her brother, while the long fingers of her right hand drummed rapidly but noiselessly on her knee; in her left hand she swung some books, strapped together. It struck Ilya as strange to see a girl so badly dressed, so proud. After sitting two or three minutes she would say to her brother:
"Well—good-bye. Behave yourself!" Then she would bow silently to the owner of the shop and go out into the street with the stride of a brave soldier going to the attack.
"What a serious sister you've got," said Lunev once to Gavrik.
Gavrik distended his nostrils, rolled his eyes wildly, and drew out his lips into a straight line, and so gave his face a carefully caricatured resemblance to his sister's. Then he explained with a smile:
"Yes—but she only puts it on."
"But why should she?"
"It looks well. She likes it.—I can imitate any face you like."
The girl interested Ilya very much; he thought about her as he used to think of Tatiana Vlassyevna.
"There, that's the kind of girl to marry—she's got a heart, for certain."
Once she brought a thick book with her and said to her brother: